She on ha ness inside, hatchee egg; she built up in dat; ole cock he shuttee up with mud." "Oh, a hornbill!" said the captain, repeating the name of the bird for the information of those around him; and now that they more narrowly scrutinised the spot where the white-pointed beak was still bobbing out and in, they could perceive that there was a patch or space of irregular roundish shape, slightly elevated above the bark, having a plastered appearance, and of the colour of dry mud.

They had barely time to make this last observation, when Saloo, having got another peg planted so as to enable him to ascend high enough, turned the edge of his axe against the trunk of the durion, and commenced chipping off the mud, that now fell in flakes to the bottom of the tree.
It took him only a very short time to effect a breach into the barricaded nest--one big enough to admit his hand with the fingers at fall spread.
His arm was at once thrust in up to the elbow; and as his digits closed fearlessly around the throat of the old hen hornbill, she was drawn forth from her place of imprisonment.
For a time she was seen in Saloo's hands, convulsively writhing and flopping her great wings, like a turkey gobbler with his head suddenly cut off.

There was some screaming, hissing, and croaking, but to all these sounds Saloo quickly put an end, by taking a fresh grasp of the throat of the great bird, choking the breath out of it until the wings ceased fluttering; and then he flung its body down at the feet of the spectators.
Saloo did not descend immediately, but once more thrust his hand into the nest, hoping, no doubt, to find an egg or eggs in it.

Instead of these, the contents proved to be a bird--and only one--a chick recently hatched, about the size of a squab-pigeon, and fat as a fed ortolan.
Unlike the progeny of the megapodes, hatched in the hot sand, the infant hornbill was without the semblance of a feather upon its skin, which was all over of a green, yellowish hue.

There was not even so much as a show of down upon it.
For a moment Saloo held it in his hand, hissing as it was in his own tiny way.